It is commendable that membership in the Eurozone has become an immediate task for this government – including joining the interim ERM2. But the decision-makers at the top fail to look critically at key system features of the Bulgarian banking system. They prefer to focus on the technical criteria without assessing the level and depth of the challenges ahead before the convergence of the Bulgarian banking system into the Euro area. Against this backdrop of events around the CCB crisis, how serious and credible is the institutional capacity in the central bank to tackle the banking and financial problems before reverting them to the Eurozone? The BNB oversees and guarantees the health of the banking system, at least in theory. Yet at the same time, two presidents, one

One of the benefits to European policymakers of Brexit is that it has dominated news coverage for months, diverting attention from several indicators that the banking crisis in Europe is inexorably worsening. When Italy announced, a few days after the Brexit vote, that it was preparing a €40 bn government recapitalisation of its banking system, Rahm Emanuel’s observation, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste” sprung to mind. Prime Minister Renzi’s proposal was notable because it contravenes the EU’s banking union rules obliging all creditors, including unguaranteed depositors, to be ‘bailed in’ before the question of public funds is supposed to arise. It is difficult to see a connection between the UK’s declaration of preference for self-government and the dramatic drops in bank share prices on

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